“I thought you two were friends.”
“That’s the problem.”
The Bear nods. Comprehensively, he says, “That’s why I’m here.”
“What a relief.”
“Why so moody today? Is there something I should know?
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Is it better to have hope or to have the truth?”
“Jesus, I wasn’t referring to that.”
“But I need an answer.”
“I can’t give you an answer.”
“Why?”
““Because you are no one to ask a question.”
“Easy.”
“You can thank me later.”
Ferang slams his own thigh with the side of his hand. “Fuck you. It’s easy for you.”
“What, exactly, do you think is easy about this?”
“Being you. To have all the cards in your hand.”
“It’s never been easy, old sport.”
Ferang rolls his eyes. He knows he’s being petulant but can’t help it. “Being perfect, all the time,” goes Ferang, clenching his fists. “Perfect even in your fallacy. You make a mistake and you turn it into a victory. Tell me, do the pimples on your back, by any chance, represent an analysis of the human experience?”
The Bear shakes his head: he is an adult dealing with a naughty boy. “Why do you find it so hard to believe in a purpose?”
“Why do you find it so damn easy?”
“It’s never been,” the Bear snaps. “It wasn’t when we were kids and loneliness was our only companion. It wasn’t when we were kids and the others were afraid of us because we were different.”
“Oh, cry me a river!”
“It isn’t now, knowing that they would kill us if only... It’s never been easy to give our life a purpose, but I did it, for the both of us, so that we could survive. You’re welcome.”
“I don’t want your beautiful dream,” murmurs Ferang almost to himself. “I want the truth.”
“When will you set out in your head that I’m your friend, not your enemy?”
“When you will stop keeping me a prisoner of your white savior complex.”
The Bear breathes out and shakes his head in all his mighty wisdom. “We’re going home. Why can’t you be happy?”
Again Ferang doesn’t say a thing. He tries to find something to say, but there is nothing. He feels childish. A pouting brat. “Maybe I’m just afraid of not being able to do enough for them.”
“We are changing their lives. It’s normal to be afraid. But we are making a difference.”
“That’s why you’re so excited to see them.”
“To do good, of course.”
Ferang sneers. “To save the world.”
“Why not?”
“You won’t change it, the world.”
“Look at me.”
Ferang keeps on looking ahead. The bus smells like the sweaty bodies of the other passengers. “You do it for yourself, that’s the truth. Even you, even if you won’t admit it.”
“I do it because I can. I do it because the world needs my help, just as it needs each of us.”
“Fine words. Damn fine words. Do you want to know why I do it? I do it because I need them to need me. Because I’m selfish, because—”
“Stop it—”
“No, I’ve had enough of your political correctness.”
“What is it, do you do it for the sake of unconventionality? As a form of rebellion?”
Ferang clenches his fists tighter. He’d like to laugh in his face. He’d like to be strong enough to, but who is he kidding?
“Stop paying attention to the judgments of others,” the Bear goes, his voice colorless.
“But that’s all you do. They don’t realize it, but I know you do, Mr Perfect.”
“I am as flawed as anyone else.”
“Of course you are.”
The Bear rubs his humanoid hands. The synthetic fur hisses.
Ferang grits his teeth. “And then again, it’s all make-believe, even Mother Teresa did it for herself. And so do you.”
“I do it for greatness, yes. What’s wrong with that if it will eventually benefit everyone? I do it to have a world more just.”
“Just listen to yourself!” The other passengers turn around, then look away. Ferang whispers, “Stop lying.”
The Bear scratches his plastic mask. “Just, please, let’s not fight,” he says. “And if you don’t like it how I run things, just tell me. We’ll talk about it. You are free to change the rules, to take the initiative.”
“So that you can turn my mistakes into your triumphs?” Ferang bares his teeth. “What is it that you always say? Oh, right, an example of human weakness.”
Now it’s the Bear who’s staring at the seat in front of him, the features of his mask unchanged. Beyond the black cavities of his eyes, however, beyond the rigid line of his half-open mouth, Ferang can glimpse a halo of regret.
Ferang sighs. “Hurting you makes me feel good, it makes me feel powerful,” he admits, his voice flat. “And at the same time it makes me feel like shit, and it makes me feel small and petty.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“I didn’t say I am.”
“I know you don’t mean the things you say. We all need to blow off sometimes.”
“Do we all?” Ferang can’t look at him. He feels undersized before him.
“We’re really changing the world, and you know it.” The Bear grazes at an encrustation of dirt on the back of the seat in front of him. “We’re changing it at least for one person.”
“Santhosh.”
“His mother’s a prostitute, his father an alcoholic. And thanks to us, he’s going to school. We’re keeping him away from the drugs. From crime. From the people who want to hurt him. We are a model and a mentor. Santosh is safe now. How can you call all this a lie?”
“Do you really think we’ll succeed?”
“Together. One step at a time.”
“You speak in cliches. You sound like a Dove chocolate.”
“But they’re not that bad, are they, my punchlines. They do work with a lot of girls, and I never heard you complain.” The Bear gives him a playful nudge.
“Sometimes,” concedes Ferang.
Beyond the window, the Pit loses its town-like appearances marking the areas next to the Fence. The huts give way to the barracks and hovels. The dogs to the goats and the goats to crows. The tar to the mud, and the mud, as the bus moves away from the Ring, to shrubs. It’s almost magic. At first, it’s nothing more than some mangy sprouting bushes on the roadside, then it’s ivy, and finally some real trees. The Pit is so vast and obscure that those who live in the Ring have no idea, but down here the trees still exist.
“I think I’ve never asked you,” says Ferang after a few minutes of silence. “Why the bear costume?”
“The other ones were out to dry.”
Ferang falls asleep, the irregular motion of the bus rocking him like a cradle. Every now and then he opens his eyes to check whether the Bear is still sitting next to him, reflected in the dirty glass of the window. He keeps an eye on him, fearing, fearing that by losing him, he’ll lose his way home.
Later, late in the night, he wakes up with a start, the wind hissing as it blows in from the half-open window next to the passenger sitting in front of him. His own cold sweat glues his shirt to the skin of his back. An unbearable stench fills his nostrils. In the darkness beyond the window, the outline of a shapeless mass, a heterogeneous jumble of plastic bags and broken utensils and rotten trash. A landfill. Next to it, illuminated by the only lamppost of the street, stands an old man, bathed in a yellow light. He looks at the bus slipping into the deserted night. His bare feet sink into the garbage. The embers of a bidi flickering in front of his face. And he’s gone.
Ferang is torn from sleep by the light of dawn. The chorus of a song he cannot recognize fills the back of his skull. The bus inches through a
small station.
“Nearly there.” The Bear is already up. He looks well rested, although it’s hard to tell from the mask. He waits for a moment. Then he says, “It’s always nice to see them change.” He walks toward the exit, his reflection invading the windows of the other passengers.
Ferang runs a hand on his face and rubs his eyes. It feels good to do so. Raw, leaden morning light. He grabs his backpack from under the seat. He gets up, puts it on his shoulders, his mouth feeling full of sand, and he follows the Bear through the bus. The conductor, looking fresh as a daisy even after a night’s work, stares at him for the entire stretch that connects his seat to the exit. Much of the bus is empty now. The remaining passengers are sleeping in the weirdest positions. The driver doesn’t stop the bus, but slows it down to let him get off. Ferang leaps on the broken tar. His ankles, numbed by an uncomfortable sleep, ache when he hits the ground. It smells like piss. It all smells like bloody piss, early in the morning. The intensity of it is almost overwhelming.
Diminutive houses surround the station. From a nearby kiosk, the smoke of freshly prepared chai raises in the air. An anorexic goat seems on the verge of crossing the road, but pauses thoughtfully instead.
Ferang keeps walking. He adjusts the backpack’s weight on his weary shoulders. As he moves away from the station, the little houses become shacks again, but they look sweeter than near the Fence. More polite. An unripe sun bounces off their chipped plates, which have been newly coated with paint and are standing proud. Pink, yellow and blue, all around.
Through the cracked doors, you glimpse a welcoming, clean room where an entire family lives and is now waking up. On the roads, the crumbled tar soon leaves room for dirt floors. On the road, the first businesses come alive, and up they go the first rusty shutters. Prematurely aging faces peek out. Those eyes don’t stare at Ferang as he walks by, despite the color of his skin and the style of his clothes, their eyes don’t dwell on him. Ferang sighs happily. He feels relieved. The Bear doesn’t.
The skyline of the Ring is but a mirage in the distance. The shacks disappear. Desolate fields take their place. Some seem to bear the fruits of attempted cultivation, but most lie barren, arid and familiar at the same time. Ferang strolls through them. He watches out for the pieces of broken glass, the metal sheets protruding from the cracks in the ground.
“Maybe they have learned some new words,” says Ferang, breaking the silence.
“Or we’ll teach them,” replies the Bear. “We sit down with them and read out a story, we help them with their drawings—”
“We hide their pencils.” A smile appears on Ferang’s face.
“That, too.”
“We play with them.”
“And with them we laugh.”
Ferang jumps over a small bush of thorns. An old man, the body carved by poor nutrition and hard work, stretches his limbs sitting on the doorsteps of his hut. Ferang raises his arm and greets him. The old man doesn’t see him. Ferang is about to lower his arm, but then he tries again, and the old man smiles in his direction. He waves back. Ferang feels validated.
The sun shines a little stronger. The ground has lost the grayish hue typical of the industrial side of the Pit. The land here is the colour of flesh.
“I can’t wait to get there.” Ferang picks up his pace.
“It’s Home.” The Bear peeps at him, reflected on the opaque surface of a metal plate.
“It’s the only place in the world where I feel like—” Ferang is saying as he untangles his headphones.
“What are you doing?” the Bear interrupts.
“It’s dawn. I want to listen to some Billy Joel. There’s nothing better than listening to Billy Joel at dawn.”
The Bear disappears and reappears in a piece of foil lying on the ground. “You don’t hate me that much, do you?” he says.
“Not now. Not here.”
“We have come a long way together. I too have sacrificed a lot.”
“Like what?” asks Ferang listening to music from a single headset.
“You.”
“Wow.”
“It was like tearing a piece of myself off. But it was necessary.” The Bear walks beside him.
“To win.”
“So you know.”
“That’s why I ask you.” Ferang turns to him without slowing his pace. “Is it better have hope or to have the truth?”
“Hope, old sport. Hope,” the Bear says.
“A lie, you mean.”
“You must understand that we’re not who we want to be. We are who we believe we are. The world is what we believe it is. And a good lie can shape a better world.”
“Is that really the world you want to live in?”
“Is this?” asks the Bear. Ferang can’t see him now but he can picture him, arms outstretched, pointing at their surroundings.
“Nil wouldn’t agree.”
“Nil lies to himself. His secret, it will devour him.”
“And ours?”
“Trust me.”
“Do you think he’s a monster?” Despite the fatigue, Ferang speeds up. “For what he did. Nil, I mean,” he adds after a moment of silence.
“I think a part of him thinks he is. So yes. To each their own.”
“You are mine.” Ferang wants to come up with a witty reply, but his words sound charged with resentment. And fear. And forgiveness.
“Am I now?” The Bear laughs. Ferang feels better. He doesn’t want to quarrel with him. Not for too long. Not now. Not here.
A church in ruins stands beyond a waterless pit. The scent. The scent of this beloved land.
“Sometimes I feel like Nil is the kindest person I’ve ever met,” says Ferang.
“Nil is a good friend, but has he built a school or does he wake up at five in the morning to volunteer? No, he gives to charity because it’s appropriate to do so, because his family must—but Santhosh? Nil would never even get near someone like him.”
Ferang looks at the Bear. Stops. Looks at the Bear. Stops. Looks at the Bear and believes his words. They’re an act, he knows that, a beautiful act, but they feel good. They feel soothing. It feels good to fall for his own con.
Both turn their heads. The hill: a colossal open dump. A hill of waste high almost to the point of concealing the sun. Fluids gushing down like waterfalls. The vapors of a volcano rising. The smell makes the hairs on the back of Ferang’s head stand, and goes through him. He can taste it on his palate. Many would call it a revolting stench, but for Ferang it’s irresistible. It smells like Home.
“You’re about to be reunited with them,” says the Bear.
“Yeah,” says Ferang.
“Yeah,” says the Bear.
The orphanage. The old gate lies sprawled on the ground. The old sign has new dents. The institute’s name is barely visible beyond a multitude of scratches. Ferang takes one step towards the entrance. The Bear, his reflection on the sign, imitates him perfectly.
But Ferang must stop. His feet plugged to the soil, his shoes glued to the path. Raising his head, he follows the path with the eyes until it’s lost among the foliage of dying trees. Ferang realizes he cannot enter. He turns to the Bear, who is already a step ahead, beyond the gate.
“What about me?” asks Ferang.
“What about you?” asks the Bear.
Alone. Ferang is totally, hopelessly alone. His body is an impregnable fortress. His soul an empty vault. He would like to cry, but can’t. He could put an end to this all, but he doesn’t want to. Or rather, again, he can’t. The Bear wouldn’t allow him. The Ubermensch. The Hero. The Bear. The Man in Charge.
The Bear stares over the invisible border between them. On his mask, morning lights dance blissfully. Ferang bares his teeth.
“You have no idea how badly I want you dead,” he says, his voice trailing off.
“Well,” says the Bear, a hint of amusement wrapping his words, “you know how to do it.”
And with that, he starts walking. He slips over
the scratched sign. His footsteps echoing on the barren ground. Along the dusty path. He’s in. He’s gone.
Ferang sighs and sits on a nearby rock. Black tears gush from his eyes shut tight. Streaming onto his cheekbones, streaming down his cheeks, they turn everything they touch to stone. Soon stone covers his entire body. Time. Tick-tock goes the clock. The hands chasing each other on the dial. Time.
Ferang can’t say how long he’s sitting there. In his tired mind, it seems like months, or years, perhaps. He opens his eyes. Beyond the wall surrounding the orphanage, through a crack between two bricks, he can see the Bear and Santhosh. Sitting on the ground, both of them seem happy, one in spite of the inexpressiveness of his mask, the other with his big, eloquent eyes.
“I came and taught them how to smile,” writes the Bear on his Instagram profile. A selfie. Smiling wide. One thousand likes.
Here is Ferang, outside, while the Bear enjoys his stolen gains. Anger rises up his throat. But Ferang knows that without the Bear, Ferang wouldn’t even be here. The Bear is his personal Savior, and his Executioner.
Only later, how long he couldn’t say, the Bear lies a hand on him. And Ferang can move again.
In silence, they get back on the bus, where men and women with fading faces bobble along the bus as it bounces on and off the irregularities of the road. Their bodies look abandoned. Everything has faded a little. Even the night seems to have lost its blackness. After all, the sky is never truly black in this city. Time. The Bear’s mask looks unperturbed, though, as always, as if nothing has happened, his only expression a mixture of mockery and fucking condescension, and yet it’s reassuring in a wicked way—the only stable element amidst things in decay. He hates him. He needs him. He wants out. Sitting down beside him, Ferang avoids contact with his synthetic costume, as much as he can. He avoids eye contact. He avoids thinking of him, but in doing so, he does.
On the horizon, the Scheria tower rises like a pike, larger and larger as the bus approaches the Ring. Ferang emerges from the depths of the Pit. For the first time in his life, leaving the Pit makes him feel almost relieved.
Beyond the window, a man driving an old Honda, his prominent belly ladled on the fuel tank, a powerful mustache hovering above his full lips. He is looking at him. Or rather, he is staring at Ferang’s arm, his white skin making sharp contrast with the rusty bus. The man surveys Ferang with his eyes. Ferang would like to raise his arm and greet him, show him that no, he’s not some sort of fantastic beast, he is a real person. But he can’t bring himself to do it.
Objects in the Mirror Page 14